Stand and Deliver: Bellator 298

Every fight matters, but some matter just a little more.

In many ways, a win is a win and a loss is a loss, but some undeniably feel bigger than others, for a variety of reasons. In some cases, the stakes are easy to define. Picture the fighter on a losing streak who knows he or she is likely fighting for their job; or conversely, any title fight in a top regional organization, where the combatants know they are almost certainly being scouted by the big leagues. At other times, a fight feels especially important for reasons that are harder to quantify, but no less real. Whether it’s the unspoken weight of being a pioneer in MMA from one’s native country, or the simple added spice of two fighters who genuinely hate each other’s guts, that fight just means more.

On Friday, Bellator MMA rolls into one of its regular stops, the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with a monster 19-fight slate headlined by former interim welterweight champion Logan Storley and the surging Brennan Ward. Beyond the sheer logistical drama of watching the promotion trot out 19 bouts in a single day, in a single cage, Bellator 298 brings plenty of other storylines as well. As one might expect of such a huge card, practically every stage of the professional fighter life cycle will be on display, from highly touted prospects making their MMA debuts, to mid-roster men and women looking to achieve separation from the pack, to top contenders who may well be fighting for a belt in their next outing, should they win on Friday.

Even on a night with so much MMA going on—OK, an afternoon and night, and maybe some of the morning—some fighters stand out from the rest because of the unique stakes in their scheduled assignments. Here are three fighters who are under just a little extra pressure to stand and deliver at Bellator 298.

Brennan Ward, Here’s Hoping for Some More Luck of the Irish

Why does Ward appear here, while Storley doesn’t? Put simply, this fight can move Ward closer to a title shot in a way that it cannot for his opponent. Storley is now 0-2 against welterweight champ Yaroslav Amosov, and their second fight was less competitive than the first. Storley therefore faces a very hard road back to a title shot for as long as the undefeated Ukrainian remains on the throne. As for any added pressure South Dakota’s favorite fighting son might feel to perform well in his home state, this will be Storley’s sixth professional fight in Sioux Falls, his third for Bellator, and he’s 5-0 so far. Clearly, he’s just fine.

For Ward, on the other hand, the stakes could only be higher if he were fighting for an actual belt on Friday. The 35-year-old Connecticut native has been with the promotion for over a decade, but for most of that time he was a talented, exciting fighter who seemed doomed never to put it all together and become a serious contender. One of the most reliable action fighters in Bellator history—in 19 bouts with the promotion, he has yet to hear the final bell even once—his ultra-violent wins have always been punctuated by baffling losses, including getting heel-hooked by Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos in 30 seconds, and guillotined by a mid-level journeyman like Fernando Gonzalez.

The Gonzalez loss seemed to close the book on Ward, as he announced his retirement from MMA, dabbled in bare-knuckle boxing and descended more fully into the substance abuse problems that had plagued him throughout his career. However, Ward returned to Bellator last year after over four years away, clean, sober and focused, and has gone 3-0 with three knockouts since, climbing to seventh in the promotion’s welterweight rankings.

The long hiatus may actually have helped Ward in ways beyond simply getting well. Amosov has already beaten most of the division’s best fighters—except for Michael Page, who recently departed as a free agent, and Ward. Thus, while No. 1 contender Storley will still be a long shot to fight for a title even if he wins on Friday, there is a decent chance that Ward could leverage an impressive win over Storley to leapfrog multiple contenders, maybe even all the way to the front of the line. It will just take the performance of a lifetime…and a little luck.

Valentin Moldavsky, How Do You Say “Just Another Guy” in Russian?

Two years ago, Moldavsky was perhaps the hottest up-and-coming heavyweight in MMA. On a six-fight winning streak, culminating in his interim belt-winning performance against Timothy Johnson, the former combat sambo world champ was headed towards a title unification bout against Ryan Bader, who had lost his light heavyweight belt to Moldavsky’s teammate and training partner, Vadim Nemkov. As a smallish heavyweight, athletic and well-conditioned, Moldavsky seemed a bit like the reincarnation of his legendary coach, Fedor Emelianenko, and at just 29 years old at the time, he appeared to have a whole career ahead of him, probably full of lofty achievements.

As he prepares to rematch Steve Mowry in Friday’s co-main event, the now 31-year-old Russian may still have a long career ahead of him, but expectations have been tempered considerably. Since his win over Johnson, Moldavsky is 0-2 with one no contest, and while his loss to Bader in their unification bout was hotly contested, his other loss saw him on the receiving end of a brutal knockout from 39-year-old Linton Vassell, a man Moldavsky had handled with relative ease in their first meeting in 2019. Moldavsky’s matchup with Mowry a year ago was short-circuited in under a minute when an eye poke left the American unable to continue.

Since then, Mowry has fought to a draw against Ali Isaev, while Moldavsky has the knockout loss to Vassell. Both men will be looking to regain lost momentum at Bellator 298, but Mowry is still undefeated and has the feel of a rising contender who hit a speed bump. For him, it is a matter of getting back on track, whereas Moldavsky, who has already been an interim champ and fought for the undisputed title, is perilously close to falling back into the heavyweight pack.

Welcome to MMA, Jordan Oliver, Now Please Work Quickly

A two-time NCAA Division I champion and a multiple-time representative of the U.S. in international competition, Oliver is one of the most accomplished amateur wrestlers to transition to mixed martial arts. As a powerful, explosive athlete with an aggressive style and just a bit of a chip on his shoulder, he is also very much in the mold of some of wrestling’s best exports to MMA. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Oliver is already 33 years old and is making his professional debut on Friday with zero official amateur MMA bouts beforehand.

A late start is not an automatic death knell to dreams of MMA greatness—Oliver’s predecessors at Oklahoma State, Randy Couture and Daniel Cormier, didn’t start fighting until they were 33 and 30 respectively, and both ended up accomplishing quite a bit, thank you very much. However, Couture came up in a whole different era, and he and Cormier both spent their careers straddling the two divisions where age matters the least.

For Oliver, whose NCAA titles came at 133 and 149 pounds, and who is scheduled to fight at featherweight, “keep fighting until I’m 45” is probably not a viable career path. A more realistic model might be Joe Warren, another standout amateur wrestler who turned to MMA after 30, made an impressive splash in the lighter weight divisions for several years, then faded quickly as he approached 40. It will come down to two main factors: the speed with which Oliver picks up the striking and submission grappling aspects of MMA, and how well his body holds up after a lifetime on the mats.

None of that should matter too much at Bellator 298. Oliver’s handpicked opponent, Andrew Triolo, is an 0-1 bantamweight, and Oliver currently sits as a -1200 favorite. Considering the placement of their bout early in the prelims, everything about the matchup seems to have been calculated to give Oliver’s MMA career a low-intensity soft launch. Barring an Aaron Pico-esque debut debacle, Oliver should be able to overwhelm Triolo by whatever he wants, so we will be forced to look at the little details of the bout for any indication of Oliver’s potential as a disruptor in Bellator’s featherweight division.